Girls swimming continues to be in full swing, and nearly every day the announcements have news of their recent swimming accomplishments. However, unless one attends the events themselves, it can be easy to forget about what the sport also consists of: diving. Freshman Clara Kilen is a diver for the team and notices the differences even as someone who doesn’t participate in the swimming aspect.
“Diving goes first, so we don’t really have to wait around for [the swimmers]. Even though we practice together and have team nights together, we practice on seperate sides of the area,” Kilen said.
Having two separate sides of the same sport does tend to split the team up, but only in practice. One participant in a different event can recognize the talent of another. Junior Jane Eilers is a swimmer but notes that diving takes a different kind of talent than what she does.
“Diving uses different muscles and structure, you have to get your body in a different form. They both take a lot of work,” Eilers said.
Diving requires a lot of flexibility, this is a skill Kilen learned from her background in gymnastics before joining the team this year.
“I did gymnastics so it was a good transition because I really liked tumbling. I started to do swim but it just did not interest me because it seemed really repetitive,” Kilen said.
One diver in particular, sophomore Abigail Wolfe, has learned the techniques of diving quickly, and has placed first in nearly every meet. In comparison to swimming, she likes diving much more because of the challenge.
“I don’t like going super fast and being out of energy, and diving can drain energy but it’s more fulfilling for me to do a ton of flips and twists instead of swimming a 100 free,” Wolfe said.
As GACs get closer, they hone these skills to get as far as they can. The swimmers and divers are critiqued by the coach so they can perfect their races and dives for the upcoming final races.
“I’m looking forward to GAC’s, I think it’s going to be cool to see how much we’ve improved since then and to see all the girls from the other schools that we know from meets,” Wolfe said.